Gardenia’s Heart

With the morning sun rising, a wet burst echoed through the forest of the floating island.

“Rookie, you’ve got a wife and a little daughter, right? I might not be the best person to say this given my relationship with Bahamut, but I doubt they’d be happy seeing you hurt yourself like this.”

Watching the colorless mass on the ground with an exasperated look, Wisteria took another indifferent bite from the glowing fruit in his hand.

Slowly, along with the vapor rising from the liters of violet blood around, a girl with purple hair and a black dress reformed from the colorless mass.

“I only have two days to learn this. After being pushed to the brink of death so many times by Bahamut yesterday, I’ve already lost too much time. I don’t have the luxury of worrying about getting hurt.”

Bracing her hands on the ground and standing up, visible exhaustion on her face, Nia brushed the dirt off her dress.

”You try so hard to act cool for someone who’s been having an erection for hours.” Finishing biting into the dangerously colored fruit in his hands, Wisteria pointed his chin toward the girl’s groin.

In the shadow of the neon-toned trees, a distinct bulge was forming beneath the girl’s white skirt. Even under the thick fabric, the clear shape of her rigid member was becoming increasingly noticeable.

“...”

“Please don’t go silent only at moments like this, it makes it seem like I’m some creep harassing you. Sorry, okay? I’m bad at jokes—I thought you’d laugh.” Bringing his palms together and bowing slightly, Wisteria rushed to correct himself—only to make things worse. ”Wait... holy shit, is that how you two managed to have a daughter—!?”

As if something clicked in his mind and everything suddenly made sense, the grayish-pink-haired boy barely had time to react before his stomach tightened.

“Say one more word about that and I’ll kill you.”

Releasing a killing intent strong enough to overwhelm most humans, Nia watched as the boy continued apologizing frantically, while she tried to deal with her own “problem” internally.

Even if only for a few days, Nia wasn’t used to being away from Lily for this long. At every moment, her thoughts drifted back to her wife.

“Lily…” Nia murmured.

Bahamut hadn’t forbidden her from going to see Lily. Just like when she visited Elarielle, she could go see her wife—but spending time like that, given the limited window she had to defeat the dragon woman, wouldn’t be wise.

Just like her, Lily was also holding herself back while investigating the matter of Tiamat. Nia couldn’t afford to falter now.

“Terrifying.” Sitting down while enduring a killing intent as intense as his mother’s, Wisteria crossed his legs, his purple eyes fixed on the girl as he sighed. “I’ll admit, your idea is creative—but it’s useless if it just makes you blow yourself up every time. Start with a single part of your body first, and get the hang of it from there.”

Even though she wanted to argue, the metamorph knew he was right. So, after calming herself with steady breaths, she began to focus.

Becoming a portal.

Instead of using a weapon to channel her spell, another possibility took shape in her mind.

“Ugh… if it weren’t for the mana-enhanced blood regenerating you instantly, your feet would’ve already turned to dust trying to channel something that powerful.” Wisteria frowned, pulling his body back into a defensive posture, as if trying to shield himself from what he was witnessing.

The boy’s instinctive reaction was justified. After all, no common sense could explain what was happening before his eyes.

From the tip of Nia’s high heel to the start of her ankle, her skin had turned into a pitch-black void, as deep as the night sky. Bright white points shimmered within it, blending with an intense violet aura that pulsed as if alive.

The creation of a teleportation spell relied on forming two portals that acted as both the entrance and the exit of a spatial rift.

Forming a portal inside a living being was impossible. Because of that, she had always needed to channel her portal through a weapon, allowing it to carry the effect that split space around her opponent. However, if Nia were to literally shape her own body into a portal—channeling the spell directly through her gelatinous form—an anomaly bordering on the absurd could be created.

A blink. That was all it took.

The instant her right foot stepped forward, Nia vanished.

Overcome with immediate panic, Wisteria shook his head in every direction, only to finally hear the echo of an impact in the distance.

Rushing toward the source of the sound, he found the purple-haired girl struggling to stand within a crater formed by her own body in the psychedelic vegetation.

“Holy—rookie, that was like a hundred meters! Way farther than the first test! It didn’t even take a second!” Wisteria shouted, barely able to contain his excitement at what he had just witnessed.

This wasn’t just a simple lunge. Between Nia and her original position stood a dense forest of trees, yet despite what seemed like a straight-line movement, not a single leaf had been disturbed—except for the tree at her point of arrival.

“It’s still not perfect.” Nia nodded, gesturing back toward where she had been.

Raising an eyebrow in confusion, Wisteria turned and looked through the trees—then his eyes widened.

In the clearing, amid the vegetation, her left foot—still in its high heel and wrapped in a veil of cosmos—remained firmly planted on the ground.

Without the flow of mana-infused blood, the gelatinous limb trembled violently for a few seconds… before finally bursting apart.

“With this method, just having the coordinates isn’t enough. Maintaining the rift stable during transit is the problem,” Nia murmured, watching as the gelatinous mass and violet blood flowed back toward her body. “The ‘portal’ exists at both the entrance and the exit—but by the end of the transition, I need it to exist only at the exit.”

Her left foot had been left behind, while her right carried her entire body forward.

By becoming the portal, everything her spell would normally handle and sustain… she now had to perform manually.

“That hero really was someone worthy of being called a genius.”

After revisiting Elarielle’s account over and over, Nia had finally formed an idea of how the human hero used his magic.

By focusing the spell entirely on himself—establishing himself as the center—Malus could literally become a portal.

That allowed him to teleport across vast distances instantly, whether attacking or defending—catching enemies off guard and avoiding ambushes without ever needing to “enter” a portal.

“By moving through these ‘paths,’ I can become completely intangible. But if I don’t calculate the entry and exit precisely, I’ll split my body apart and scatter pieces of it along the way.”

Unlike the human hero, who could likely perform these calculations through instinct alone, Nia had to brute-force every equation for even the smallest movement. That forced her to endure the strain of the magic coursing through her body for far longer than Malus ever would—and if not for her dragon blood healing her, this would have been impossible.

“I may not know the symbols of a portal spell, but I do know that even simple calculations are enough to give ordinary humans headaches. If you try to calculate that much, your mind will fry.”

Wisteria said, but Nia simply shook her head.

“Complex calculations aren’t a problem for me.” Touching her forehead with her thumb, Nia gestured to make her point.

Complex spells were not a problem for the metamorph. For the girl who could perfectly maintain her wife’s body down to the cellular level, not even the most complex teleportation spell was a difficult task.

However, being able to handle it was different from being able to do it quickly.

“Alright, in that case, let’s set the mental work aside and focus on the real problem. Do you have any idea how much of a burden this is on your body?” Wisteria commented, pointing at the newly regenerated leg.

By establishing a completely different approach to teleportation, even Nia needed time to adapt and refine it. However, with no time for that, the metamorph had no choice but to endure the burden of the extra time it took to prepare her magic.

In the past, when she faced Torment, Nia channeled her spell into her stardust sword in an attempt to defeat the monster. That action resulted in her weapon being completely destroyed.

Now, she was trying to do the same, but using her own body to bear the burden.

“Before, when Mom inflicted a fatal wound on you, you used part of your dark mana to heal yourself using dragon blood. You did that dozens—no, hundreds—of times without any problems. But that was only because you had time to rest between each fatal wound, replenishing what you spent from your dark mana reserves.”

Just as dragons could create something akin to a stockpile of extra lives, Nia, taking advantage of her vast reserves and the speed at which she replenished them, could regenerate almost endlessly—as long as she didn’t completely lose consciousness or exhaust her reserves.

“When you cast the portal on yourself, the burden you take on is the same as suffering successive fatal wounds continuously. No matter how vast your dark mana reserves are, not even you could replenish them that quickly. If the fight drags on too long, or if you take a large enough external hit, it’ll be the end of you.”

Hearing Wisteria’s words, Nia looked at her open hand.

She knew that very well.

From the very first moment she tested this ability, she knew how reckless it was.

“I can’t activate and deactivate the spell only at the moment of movement or impact. I don’t have a choice.” Stepping away from the destroyed tree, Nia walked toward the clearing. “Right now, the most effective method is to keep the ‘portal’ established and only shift the openings in position. That’s the only way to use this in combat.”

“Wait! Wait! Wait!” Wisteria shouted, watching the girl’s fists take on a color reminiscent of the night sky. “Didn’t you hear what I just said!? Every second your body stays in a portal state drains a surreal amount of dark mana just to regenerate. Even if it’s only your feet or your hands, it’s still absurd!”

Even in an absurd situation where Bahamut killed her every single second, just that fraction of time bearing the burden of the spell would be enough for the spell itself to inflict fatal damage on her nearly ten times over.

And yet, even as she now endured damage sufficient to kill her—while being healed at a superhuman rate by her dragon blood—Nia gazed thoughtfully at her fingers, now tinted with a cosmic hue.

Instead of spending time training to accelerate the entire process with no guarantee of success, Nia concluded that the most efficient alternative was to focus solely on calculating the openings, trusting her body to handle the burden.

“Just the feet or hands aren’t enough. I need much more to stand a chance against her.”

Unlike the first times she used the spell, thanks to her ever-increasing regenerative ability, the parts of her body that became “portals” no longer exploded immediately. Even if only slightly, that was progress.

“Is there any difference in channeling the portal through different parts of your body?” Sighing as she realized the girl wouldn’t give up, Wisteria looked at the fingers glowing as if constellations pulsed within them.

“The difference lies in how my mind processes the function,” Nia replied.

Feet were meant for movement, and hands for tasks.

That wasn’t an absolute truth—there were people who could work with their feet and those who moved using their arms and hands. However, when trying to construct something so complex, relying on the simple movements of the human body could make the process easier for her mind to assimilate.

That reasoning led Nia to develop the spell using her human body rather than as a metamorph sphere.

“Feet to move, hands to attack. I’ll assign different roles to each part of my body at first, and gradually blend those functions as I improve.”

As she explained her reasoning, Nia didn’t stop walking when they reached the clearing. For a moment, Wisteria wondered where the girl was going—until she felt the ground beneath her feet tremble.

The creature moved as if the floating island, shaped like a dead star, had decided to bleed fire.

Its body was a living mass of incandescent lava, pulsing in shades of orange and red, while plates of coal-black rock fitted over it like broken armor. Each of its movements made the crust crack, revealing a blazing glow like the heart of a volcano.

From its torso burned a numinous core like a sun imprisoned within stone, spilling large amounts of magma like flaming legs that allowed it to glide. Two disproportionate arms reached toward the ground, leaving behind a deep trail of slowly dripping magma that burned everything it touched.

“We’ve got company, huh?” Wisteria murmured, adjusting the scarf around her neck as she conjured a shard of crystal scale in the air. “With Mother at the center of the island, the lava golems that protect this place are finally starting to drift toward the edges. I’ll handle thi—”

Before she could finish speaking, her body was pushed aside by a purple tentacle.

“Don’t interfere. It’s my prey.”

Stepping forward slowly, Nia faced the lava golem advancing toward them.

Without a proper sword, she couldn’t cut through space—but that didn’t mean she couldn’t shake it.

Close enough for the cold to be replaced by an infernal heat, the metamorph faced the monster reaching for her, the glowing magma carrying a strong scent of sulfur.

By forming a portal in her hand, an effect similar—though on a smaller scale—to [Cosmos Rupture] could be created.

When the nearly four-meter-tall monster’s fist came crashing down toward her, Nia simply thrust her own fist forward.

And that was all it took.

As if night were being born from day, fractures— not in the golem, but in space itself—spread outward like a growing spiderweb.

Ethereal cracks, thin and irregular, as though reality itself were splintering, burst forth in absolute silence.

And then, there was collapse.

As if its very existence were being pulled into the void created by the impact, the lava golem watched its fist be vaporized.

“As expected, even if it distorts space, the density of the target’s mana affects the range,” Nia murmured, observing the hole opened in the golem, now missing everything from the shoulder down. “For now, the distortion’s area of effect is a sphere with a radius of a little over one meter against monsters of this level, then?”

If Elarielle’s description was accurate, Malus could expand the distortion range of his punches far enough to bring down the fortress of Orlaith with a single blow.

Although she wanted to keep fighting at long range, with such a small area of effect for this spell, direct contact with her target would be necessary.

Stopping her analysis, Nia looked at the monster as it finally managed to stabilize its balance. Even without one of its arms, it had not fallen.

Without a mouth, it was not a roar of fury that filled the air, but an overwhelming wave of heat, enough to melt metal. Beneath the monster, the cold, bluish stone ground began to darken, turning almost to charcoal. The already thin air filled with soot.

Even so, without so much as raising an eyebrow, Nia stood still, watching the incarnation of a volcano as it tried to strike her again.

“Hands to attack, feet to move,” she whispered, watching the golem’s left fist fall toward her as she slowly moved her right foot.

And the golem lost its target.

Turning from side to side, the lava monster tried to find the target that had suddenly disappeared.

Then the echo of a high heel rang inside its head.

“No part was left behind.”

Standing atop the violently swaying golem, a beautiful girl with purple hair and a black dress looked down at her feet, now covered in a night-like darkness.

Her tests with this prey were over, so there was no reason to prolong this any further.

Extending her palm downward, Nia touched the scorching surface of the lava golem. The impact, no heavier than a simple, gentle touch, was enough to crush the nearly four-meter monster against the ground.

Both its remaining arm and its blazing core became motionless. Thousands of cracks spread across the rocky surface that formed its body.

Slowly, several purple tentacles began to melt the golem’s body—or rather, what was left of it.

“So, with a proper sword, you can cut the ‘space’ in which what you want to split exists,” Wisteria said as he approached, trying to process the sight of the massive golem being melted. “But a fist deforms that same ‘space,’ crushing whatever is there, even if on a smaller scale.”

The destructive power was certainly inferior to [Cosmos Rupture], which drained nearly all of her dark mana in pursuit of a decisive strike. However, a single, all-or-nothing ability was not what Nia was seeking here.

If Bahamut were to stop her ultimate attack like last time, all that training would be meaningless. Nia needed a reliable ability—one she could use in battle without depending on proper weapons or favorable circumstances.

“Wait, thinking about it— in this state, you’re theoretically a portal now,” Wisteria froze as an idea struck her. “Does that mean you can teleport anything that comes into contact with you as well?”

“Possibly, but I’m only one side of the portal until I teleport,” Nia replied, looking at her hands and feet covered in a night-sky hue, which continued to demand an overwhelming amount of her dark mana just to keep her body healed. “Creating a theoretical, imaginary exit isn’t impossible, but the distance and precision would be much more limited due to the extra calculations required.”

In Elarielle’s story, the human hero teleported her away to remove her from Orlaith’s laboratory, and also teleported alongside her to enter it before. In both cases, the method was different, but the end result was the same.

As a “portal,” Nia could do what her spell would normally accomplish, but the process to do so was thousands of times more complex.

“Want to be the test subject? I’ll send you to Athamas.”

Walking toward the boy, Nia extended her right hand.

“I knew it—you’re still mad about the joke!” Caught off guard, Wisteria fell onto his back in panic, scrambling across the ground as he tried to escape the purple-haired girl. “This isn’t funny! If you mess up even a single calculation, you might end up sending only half of my body!”

“Do you need more than that?”

With a smile on her face, Nia touched the boy’s grayish-pink hair—and he instantly vanished.

Then, looking toward the interior of the forest, Nia took a step forward.

“Two hundred meters?” Appearing midair, the metamorph murmured, looking down at the boy lying on the ground with a pale face.

“You’re scarier than Bahamut…” Upside down, his body tangled in a dense mass of neon-colored branches, Wisteria broke into a cold sweat.

Unlike conventional portals, which she could use to cross entire continents, acting as the portal itself was undoubtedly more complex. It was little compared to Malus’s five kilometers, but for the amount of time she had practiced, it was acceptable.

However, beyond the distance she managed to send the boy, something else made Nia tilt her head.

Like golden runes floating in the air, a sphere formed by countless shifting inscriptions hovered above the vibrant vegetation.

Nia knew what that was—after all, it wasn’t the first time she had seen something like it.

“Bahamut… Mother said this is the Source Matrix that formed the barrier of this labyrinth,” Wisteria said, brushing the dirt off his clothes as he stood up, making sure to keep his distance from Nia in case she tried to teleport him again. “Looks like it’s what keeps this place floating, so don’t touch it or the island will fall into the ocean.”

As the heart of a barrier, the Source Matrix was what allowed additional properties to be applied to a spell. Still, as she looked at the floating runes, even Nia couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow.

“Are you the current owner of the barrier?” Nia asked, looking at the Wisteria.

“What? I don’t know how to deal with barriers—do you know how difficult that is? Besides, dragons can’t use magic, so I never had a teacher. There’s a limit to how far self-study can take you.”

Watching Wisteria make a face, Nia brought a hand to her chin, puzzled.

“What is it? Something wrong?” Wisteria asked.

“Unlike conventional ones, labyrinth barriers are self-sustaining and don’t depend on the mana of whoever holds control over the Source Matrix. Even without someone with authority, they can remain active.”

Gently touching the floating, translucent runes, Nia frowned.

“Even the invisibility effect was deactivated through a direct command… This shouldn’t be exposed out in the open like this. This barrier was abandoned.”

The forest labyrinth that was now her home had the same type of barrier surrounding it. By absorbing mana from its surroundings to sustain itself, the barrier could render the labyrinth completely invisible to those outside.

“So you’re saying the previous owner disabled it?” Wisteria asked.

“You don’t know?” Nia frowned.

“I wasn’t here when Mother found this place. She has her own matters to deal with.”

Hearing the boy’s words, Nia couldn’t help but fall into thought.

Even when they created locations filled with treasures and artifacts as decoys to hide what was truly valuable, labyrinths were meant to remain concealed.

It was almost as if someone wanted this place to be discovered.

“Hey… are you sure about this?” Turning to the boy, who was staring at the golden runes with curiosity, Nia asked in a low voice.

“Sure about what?” Wisteria tilted his head.

Pushing aside the floating runes, Nia remained silent for a moment.

“Are you sure you want to help me like this? I’m training to kill your caretaker.”

Even though Wisteria was not Bahamut’s biological child, Nia had still noticed the strong bond they shared.

Whether it was a test for her or not, the boy would still be helping someone who intended to harm his family. Because of that, Nia couldn’t understand his motivations, even after thinking about it deeply.

Hearing the question, Wisteria widened his eyes for a brief moment before answering without hesitation. “If that’s what Bahamut wants, I’ll help her.”

Placing a hand over his chest, the boy narrowed his purple eyes.

“Even though I’m human, Bahamut adopted me and raised me as a dragon. I may not be a real one, but I’m part of the Scales Clan. I’ll respect my leader’s will, even if it involves killing her.”

Seeing the boy speak with such determination for the first time, Nia couldn’t help but let out a small whistle of surprise. “Sounds like a difficult environment to live in.”

Letting out a light laugh, Nia turned and began walking back toward the clearing.

“Of course, they’re not like birds that push their chicks out of the nest to force them to fly or die from the fall.” Realizing that sounded a bit extreme, Wisteria waved his arms hurriedly as his mind raced to correct himself. “I mean, yes, I’ve gone through a lot—especially living in such dense mist—but I was never lacking anything! Even if it doesn’t seem like it because we’re the military clan, the Scales Clan is the least conservative among the three. We’re not required to do anything reckless, and even when following orders, we’re always expected to prioritize our safety.”

Walking right behind the girl, Wisteria’s expression shifted, as if he had just remembered something.

“Oh, right. To give you an idea, I think it was about eight years ago—the son of the dragon you killed flew alone toward Finis across the ocean.”

“For what reason?” Nia stopped walking, turning toward the grayish-pink-haired boy.

“Probably to prove his strength and secure succession as clan leader or something like that.” Wisteria shrugged, as if emphasizing how absurd it sounded. “The Wings Clan values raw power above everything, so it’s not hard to imagine him doing something like that.”

Fafnir’s son was dead.

Nia’s eyes widened. So that was why Ignis would become the next leader.

“During the war against the demons, the help of the clan leaders was essential in bringing down some of the Twilight,” Wisteria continued. “However, aside from the heroes, no other individual in history has managed to stand against those who occupy the five lowest-numbered seats among the Twilight… that is, until you appeared.”

Pointing at the girl, Wisteria couldn’t help but let out an exasperated laugh.

“He was weaker than Ignis, so killing a Twilight would’ve solidified his standing among the dragons of the Wings Clan—but the idea couldn’t have been more foolish. What’s the point of crossing an ocean filled with leviathans just to be killed? A dragon can’t stay under the protection of its progenitors forever, but risking your life like that for attention is too much.”

As Wisteria spoke, Nia leaned against a tree and closed her eyes.

It was still morning.

Even though this part of her body was far from her wife, the girl was still connected to her—and always would be.

On a soft, comfortable bed, safely protected within her purple tentacles and barrier, two silver-haired girls slept deeply, tightly embraced.

Gently, one of the tentacles slid across the little girl’s face, tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear.

“…Protection, huh?”

On the way to Athamas, Nia had faced one of the greatest fears of her life.

The possibility of having lost her daughter was something that still deeply terrified her even now.

Nia wanted to always be with her family—to protect them from every danger and ensure they were safe.

As a mother, it was her duty to protect her, to stay by her side, and to make sure she was safe.

However, no matter how strong that desire was, she knew she couldn’t be by Rose’s side at all times.

“Something wrong?”

Wisteria’s voice made the girl open her eyes.

Clenching the fist now coated in night and stepping away from the tree, Nia remained silent for a moment before shaking her head.

“No.” Nia shook her head. ”I just remembered why I’m fighting.”

She couldn’t be by her daughter’s side at every moment. She couldn’t fight all her battles for her or ensure she would never get hurt.

But as Lily had explained to her, if she learned nothing from her mistakes—if she only lamented what she couldn’t do or failed to do—she would never grow as a mother.

There was something she could do.

“I’ll wipe that smile off Bahamut’s face and then take my daughter out hunting.”